It’s Good To Have A Hobby – WN 155

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This is the Write Now Podcast with Sarah Werner, Episode 155: It’s Good To Have A Hobby.

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Welcome to Write Now, the podcast that helps all writers find the time, energy, and courage you need to pursue your passion and write. I’m your host, Sarah Werner, and today I want to talk about hobbies.

Now, Sarah, you may be saying, writing is my hobby. I go to work all day and then I come home and I take care of my family, and then I take the dog for a walk and then I finish cleaning up the house and then I get to write and okay, that is very valid. But I want to explore what that actually means for us as creative individuals and how we can find more is the word enrichment? I don’t know, more fulfillment and satisfaction in our lives as creative people. So what is a hobby? Basically, it’s something that you do that you enjoy. It doesn’t have to make you money or support your family.

(01:32):
More importantly, that is free of expectation from anyone else. You can be an amateur. You can enjoy yourself. Remember joy, remember enjoying yourself. That’s a thing I want you to have that a hobby is ideally a form of rest, a way in which we recharge ourselves so that we have energy for the next day or the next task at hand. Now, I did a little bit of research in preparation for this episode and it was actually really fascinating. I found that when people spend time on their hobbies, it results in lower stress, better health, better sleep, and better overall satisfaction with life. So that’s pretty good. Plus you get to enjoy yourself. You get to invest your time in something that you choose to enjoy. I’ve talked about rest on this podcast before years ago, specifically episode 64 from back in 2017. If you want to go all the way back and listen to that, you can, but basically, and I am a huge hypocrite when it comes to this.

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Apparently rest is good for us. We are not machines who were created to constantly produce, produce, produce. That is not our function in life. And again, what’s the opposite of preaching to the choir when I’m saying this to myself and I still have trouble digesting and taking that advice. The idea of rest is even kind of a radical idea. In our day and age, we live in a society obsessed with hustling, with hustle culture, with maximizing the time and energy you spend in any given thing to give you maximum rewards and maximum gain. People talk about their grind set, which is like mind, but like grindstone and claim to work over a hundred hours a week, et cetera, et cetera. Now, there’s nothing wrong with wanting to do the best you can and pushing yourself to learn and grow, but when you view yourself primarily as a factory, things get a little weird.

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And by weird, I mean bad. Again, this is something that I struggle with myself. Believe it or not, I struggle with whether or not I deserve to rest. Now, to some of you, this might seem like the most ridiculous notion in the world, but others of you might be nodding along. Some of this comes from the Protestant work ethic. Some of it comes from the saying, what is it? The idle hands or the devil’s workshop, things that are promoted and said to encourage people to work harder for other people who then make money from that work. Idle hands are not the devil’s workshop. Idle hands make cool stuff like art and music and poetry and play-doh sculptures, and those things are good for us and good for society. But if you’ve ever attended a school or lived in a school district that has cut funding from its art and music programs, then you know that society doesn’t really place a high value on the things that we make that bring us joy in our hearts.

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And even saying that sounds a little silly, right? What place does joy have in a corporate lifestyle? Where is joy on the factory floor? But that’s exactly why we need it. Growing up, I was always encouraged to do my homework and my chores before I got out my writing materials or my art supplies. And this is not the dig against my parents or anything like that. This is just how things were. You needed to do the kind of unpleasant tasks before you could reward yourself with the fun stuff, right? It’s like the notion of eating dessert after your meal. You got to get all those good nutrients in there and then you can top it off with some sugar. And I know for me, I tended to get lost in projects to the extent that when I was writing, I would scribble into the early hours of the morning with no concept of the time that was going by.

(05:56):
And so yeah, if my homework was going to get done, then I had to do it before I allowed myself to get lost in a project. So I get that deferred gratification is not a bad thing, but when we start treating something as necessary as rest, as gratification, as a little treat, I think that’s where we start to have the problem. And again, I am not immune to this. Some of you who have been listening to this podcast for years, remember the early days when I was working a full-time job at a marketing agency? I was volunteering at multiple things. I was leading a writer’s group downtown. I was working on my own writing stuff, I was podcasting. I was doing a million things, but none of them were restful. Maybe some of it also comes from wanting to prove oneself. Believe it or not, I was younger 10 years ago and I had a lot more energy and go-getitiveness, whatever that phrase is supposed to be. I was looking to grow my career and network and meet people and publish stuff and do all of the things, and I thought, well, if I’m resting, then I’m not producing. I’m not going toward what I want. I’m not going toward my goals. I am in fact gasp, lazy, which in retrospect was not true at all. I am now of the mindset that if you are the type of person who worries about whether or not you are lazy or becoming lazy, you are not lazy.

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And as the author of a very excellent book that I have read would suggest laziness doesn’t actually exist, but that is another topic for another day and probably for another podcast, you don’t have to work hard to earn rest. Rest is not a treat. Rest is a function of your body that allows it to mend and heal and regain energy for the next day. Something that has changed for me and how I think about rest has been realizing it’s a body function and it’s like, oh, well, I hold my breath and then give myself a little bit of oxygen as a treat. No, you need to breathe or Hey, I need to go to the bathroom. I’ll hold it because I don’t deserve to go yet. Like what? Our culture glorifies, denying ourselves rest, being busy, diving headfirst into hustle culture because it’s good for the economy, but our bodies need rest.

(08:32):
Our minds need rest. We do not need to deserve rest any more than any human being deserves to eat food every day. I’ve gone down this tangent about rest because it’s so deeply related to hobbies, which again are things that we do that are restful. There is no pressure with a hobby to make money or to be good at it or to win. There is only the doing and the existing within that doing. Let’s get back to the idea that, but Sarah, writing is my hobby. My question for you is what do you want out of your writing? Do you sit down in the evenings or in the mornings or whenever it is you write? Maybe you don’t even sit down. Do you start writing to relax, to unwind? Or do you write because you have dreams of publishing a book, of being an author of getting on that New York Times bestseller list?

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Do you write because it is a quiet meditative practice? Or do you write to reach a daily word count? I’m not asking this to question why you write. I mean, I kind of am, but the purpose of this is to get you to take a look at is the writing I’m doing restful or is it work? I would argue that most people who say that writing is a hobby for them, it’s actually not a hobby, but a second career that they’re not getting paid for because they’re putting in energy and time and work to produce something for a reason, for a purpose, for a goal. So are you writing for the sheer pleasure of putting words onto a page or are you writing as a side gig, as a second job, as a hopeful contender for that New York Times bestseller list? I wanted to talk about this because this is something that I have only very recently realized for myself.

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I’ve struggled with it for years. There’s even an episode of this podcast, episode number one 15 back from 2021 that’s called Is Writing Hard Work in which I talk about is writing something that we do to relax or is it work? And the answer is both in different circumstances. It depends what you’re writing and why. It’s also good to point out that just because you’re enjoying something doesn’t mean it’s relaxing. So for me, when I am sitting down and writing, sure, I am enjoying myself. The world is a good place. I’m putting words onto paper, I’m crafting a story. I’m in my element. I’m following my passion, but I am not resting. My brain is working really hard and I enjoy it, but it’s not restful. There is pressure, there are expectations, there are deadlines. Even if these things are self-imposed, they’re still there. On the other hand, when I’m reading a book, I am resting.

(11:49):
I’m recharging. I can feel the energy coming back into my and my heart. I know that’s not scientific, but I can feel it. The same is true when I take a leisurely walk outside in my favorite park or in the graveyard behind my house, I look up at the trees, I breathe deep, I replenish my energy. I enjoy myself and I rest. Even for years after I left my day job to write full-time, I still thought of writing as a hobby, as something I got to do for fun, even though it’s where the majority of our income was coming from, and I was getting super burned out because all I was doing all the time was writing because I enjoyed writing, but it was not a restful activity. It did not recharge me, at least not the kind of writing that I was doing. Again, there are different types of writing.

(12:46):
The type of writing that comes with expectations to meet deadlines and pressure to perform, and the need to make money is not rest. That is not restful writing. So I was writing all the time and I was even writing in my quote unquote free time and wondering why I was getting so burned out, wondering why my brain felt like butter scraped over too much bread to quote Bilbo Baggins. And some part of my brain was like, do I need a hobby? And I pushed back against that for so long, which is why I am so impassioned about speaking to you today about having a hobby. Hobbies are good for us. They improve our lives, they improve our happiness, they improve our health. They give us something to look forward to and something where there’s no pressure to be really good at it. When I had this thought that, boy, I should pursue some kind of hobby, I was already in a place of scarcity about getting everything done that I needed to do, and maybe that’s the question you’re asking now, maybe you’re saying, Sarah, writing has to be my hobby because I literally have zero time for anything else or Sarah, I can’t have any hobbies right now because my life is so busy and over complicated and full.

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And let me tell you, I have been there. I may be still kind of there. Now. Again, this episode is for myself as much as it is for everyone else. Way back in 2015, in the first episode of the Write Now podcast, I talked about work life and writing balance, and at that time, my schedule was packed. I would get up, I would work on a ghost writing project. I would go to my full-time job. I would go to meetings or volunteer stuff after work. I would do other things. I was doing a lot of things. And maybe this resonates with where you are right now as well. Maybe you have children to take care of. Maybe you have a sick or elderly loved one who needs your care and attention, and that’s part of life. But I want you to think, do you really have zero time?

(15:05):
Do you really actually have zero time? Looking back, my hobbies were volunteering, leading that writer’s workshop, podcasting, except they weren’t restful hobbies. I was overworking myself, and maybe you are too. So how do you spend the majority of your free time? How do you spend your time when you’re not at work or serving your family? Something that at least for me was really hard to admit was how much time I spent each day on the internet. Sure, it was just a minute here and a minute there, but it added up to multiple hours per day spent on at the time, whatever was popular. Facebook, various blogs, Twitter, maybe today for you it’s TikTok or Instagram, the design of social media apps. That continuous scroll is to keep us moving through without any friction, without anything to make us stop and say, Hey, I’ve been on this app for 46 minutes.

(16:14):
Maybe I should go and do something else that I actually enjoy. Or if social media is your hobby right now, if that is what you spend the majority of your free time doing, that is okay. Again, if it helps you find rest, then that’s your hobby and that’s great. My sister, when she comes home from work, well after she picks up her three-year-old from daycare, makes dinner for everyone, cleans the house, gets the little one to bed, et cetera, then she spends her free time, hours and hours on TikTok and she loves it. She’s always sending me the best and funniest tos, and I’m actually very grateful that she curates this stuff for me. So I don’t have to spend all of my time looking through TikTok, but that’s her hobby maybe for you right now, because hobbies can change with the seasons that we go through.

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Maybe right now, your hobby is shuttling your kids around to soccer practice, to choir practice, to violin practice, to wherever it is that kids are going these days. Maybe that’s your hobby right now. You are just spending time with your children and that’s fantastic because they’re going to grow up so fast. Can you find restful time in there though when you can enjoy yourself sitting in the car with the radio on, looking for your kid to come out of school, not worrying about things, not going through the 17,000 things you have to do when you get home. Again, I don’t want to sound like this is a bad thing because it’s not. I just want you to be able to say, yes, I spend my time on social media and I enjoy it, and it makes me feel rested and happy. So I realized that I was this person.

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I realized I was spending hours a day on insert popular social media platform here, and yes, part of it was that I was sucked into that infinite scroll, that I really was clueless as to how much time I was putting into social media. But another part of it was rest and joy. I saw tweets and videos and posts that made me laugh, that brought me joy, that made me feel like I was closer to someone else. There was value there. I just had to admit that that’s where I was spending my time. Once I realized this, I decided that I wanted to be more intentional with how I spent my time, my free time. That is, and this is kind of embarrassing to admit, but I had to Google what some different hobbies were because I didn’t know what counted as a hobby, what I might find restful and replenishing and rejuvenating.

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And from that Google search, I started putting together a list of things that I thought I might enjoy. And for today’s episode, I’ve expanded that list just in case you are also kind of struggling to figure out what to do with your free time when you are not writing. So on this list, reading, listening to audio books, watching movies, watching tv because there is a lot of good tv, well-written, well-acted TV out there today, playing good video games. Again, there’s a lot of good storytelling being done in video games today, performing in your local theater, if that’s something that gives you energy. If you’re an extrovert, go for it. Creating art, playing music, performing music, or even sitting back and listening to music, enjoying music, knitting, crocheting, fabric and fiber arts, gardening, bird watching tea and coffee, collecting, drinking, enjoying cooking, baking, photography, travel, fitness, exercise, sports like baseball or intramural soccer, wine tasting, dancing, stamp collecting, taking classes, putting together model trains in the basement, volunteering at your local animal shelter, reading to your kids.

(20:23):
The idea with these things is not to get good at them. Sorry if I sound a little aggressive, but I feel really strongly about this. The idea with these things is you are allowed to be bad at them. You are allowed to just hang out and exist within them. You don’t have to strive in this aspect of your life, in your career. Sure, as a parent, absolutely as a writer, yes, strive for greatness, but you need one area of your life in which you are not desperately striving. So for example, if you choose photography as a hobby you’d like to try, the point is not to get super good at it or to level up in it intentionally. The thing is with hobbies, if you do them long enough, you become good at them just by doing them. The point is not to make a career out of being a photographer, or if you decide that’s what you want your career to be, then you have some thinking to do.

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The point is not to set up a side hustle where you sell photographs or you photograph weddings or do senior pictures or anything like that. The point is simply to take out your camera or heck even open up the camera on your phone and look at the world through that lens and let yourself exist with and in that world and understand that even though it is scary and complicated at times, the world is a good place and there’s beauty in everything, including yourself. There’s rest in that and joy and balance and peace and all sorts of different things. Not everything we do has to make us money. Money is not any sort of ultimate validation of who we are or what we accomplished in life. Money is a tool, and honestly, if you are still struggling to come up with something that might be a fun hobby, just think, what would you spend your money on?

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If you had money, would you spend it on travel, good food, fancy cars? Maybe there’s a hobby in there that would bring you fulfillment and satisfaction. One final point I want to address. There was a really rough patch in my life during which I would claim that sleeping was my hobby. Sleeping is not a hobby. Sleeping is a bodily function. It is not a special treat for when you’re good or when you’ve earned it. Self-care is also not a hobby. If you find yourself saying something like, oh, man, I get to take a shower today as a special treat, I encourage you to take a look at what else you’ve been doing with your time. Sleeping and eating and breathing are not hobbies. Those are literally the things that keep us alive and maybe in a way, in a different way. Hobbies can help keep us alive as well.

(23:27):
They can help us regain our energy, maintain our focus on what is important in life. Help us find joy and fulfillment and satisfaction. It gives us a space where we’re allowed to be bad at something and not perfect or striving for greatness. Something where there’s no pressure for us to make an income. Again, if this is writing for you, then that is fantastic, but if you’re writing, if you’re being honest, if your writing is actually a second paid slash unpaid job in your life, I want you to look at hobbies. I want you to find something that gives you rest. Rest is not a luxury. Rest is not for the week. Rest is something that our minds and bodies need to be strong. So before I record an episode of the right Now podcast, I do a little bit of prep. So most of this is just me speaking into a microphone, but I do have a little sheet of paper here with some notes scribbled on it, somewhat allegedly, and at the bottom here, I just have a little note to myself that says, all of Stephen King’s narrators are writers because he has no hobbies.

(24:45):
And I said that kind of in jest. I’m sure Stephen King has plenty of hobbies, but hobbies make us a more interesting person if you’re willing to go out and try sculpting. If you are willing to go on a walk and look at the world with new eyes, if you are willing to learn what it takes to keep a tank full of turtles alive, that can make it into your writing and make things really interesting. So just a little thought there. I am able to create episodes of the Write Now podcast for you. Thank you to the generous sponsorship of several individuals. These folks donate money through Patreon, which is a secure third party donation platform that allows folks like you to throw me a dollar per episode or $2 per episode, or $700 per episode, or whatever seems reasonable to you. Special thanks this week, go out to Laurie, Regina Calabrese, Amber Tussi, Charmaine Ferrara, Dennis Martin, Michael Beckwith, Mike Taft, Poppy Brown, Sarah Banham, Summer, That Guy, Tiffany Joyner, and Whitney Magruder.

(25:55):
Thank you so, so much for the support that you give me in this podcast. You help me to create this show ad free for people all around the world. So thank you so much. Again, if you’d like to become a patron yourself, you can do so in the show notes for today’s episode. This is episode number 1 54, so you just go to the show notes out on my website@sarahwerner.com. That’s S A R A H W E R N E r.com, ahead to the show notes for this episode. And scroll down to where it says, support this podcast. It should be a button, unless my website’s not working correctly, in which case it might just be a link. I’ll also try to have a link to that in the show notes for today’s episode. However, if you want to support this podcast and you do not have any money right now, oh my gosh, I feel you.

(26:48):
There are other ways to support the show, one of them being to simply tell someone else about it. If you enjoy listening to the right now podcast, chances are there is someone in your life who may enjoy it as well, and it would be a lovely thing for you to recommend it to them. If they’ve never listened to a podcast before, show them how to download podcasts and listen to them and subscribe, all that good stuff. I truly do appreciate it. With that, this has been episode 1 54 of the Write Now Podcast, the podcast that helps all writers, aspiring professional, and otherwise, to find the time, energy, and courage you need to pursue your passion and write. I’m Sarah Werner, and I think I’m going to go play some video games.